Refuge

War Basics

Basic Rules

War takes place between various Factions. Each faction controls Settlements, Locations and Units on the world map. Each of these has its own stats that help tell the story of war.

Each faction gets one turn every two weeks of real time (or once every time we play). I’m still experimenting with this crap so it might take a while to nail this down.

Factions

Factions have five core stats that describe their strengths and weaknesses.

Military Capacity for fielding military forces

Influence Diplomatic sway and ability to persuade other factions

Economy Access to resources and wealth

Intelligence Ability to gain information about other factions

Magic Arcane and divine power wielded by this faction

A faction’s stats are mostly modified by the Units, Settlements and Locations under its control. Factions might also have special abilities, but most things are handled through the abilities of Units.

A Faction is defeated when it falls apart, usually by losing all its settlements and units.

Settlements

Settlements are the lifeblood of most factions. Settlements control Land, which provide resources (Military/Influence/Economic/Intelligence/Magic). They also have two key stats:

Population

Morale

In addition, Units can occupy Settlements. Some Units have special abilities that only work when they occupy a Settlement.

You can also build Structures within Settlements. Structures are units that cannot move but improve a Settlement in some way. Examples include Barracks, Town Halls, Docks, Taverns, and Alchemy Shops.

Units

Units are basically “Things that can do stuff.” They work like Magic: The Gathering cards. A unit might be a group (A company of soldiers), an individual (chief diplomat, leader, archmage), a structure (The Refuge Docks), or anything else. Units have several key stats:

Offense

Defense

Movement

Units usually have one or more Abilities. Abilities let units do stuff, usually to other units. Units can’t usually do things not covered by one of their abilities, unless it just makes sense.

In addition, units have 1-5 Types. A Type is one of the five main stats for a Faction: Military, Influence, Economic, Intelligence, and Magic. If a unit has a Type, it can use its full Offense score for interactions using that type (I’ll explain more later).

Finally, a Unit may have one or more Qualities. Qualities are things like: Cavalry, Archer, Scout, Structure, Stealth, and so forth. Qualities have their own rules that you’ll learn pretty quickly.

Combat

Conflict between factions is always resolved through Units. Units may use Abilities to engage each other. Engagements may be actual combat, bribery, spying, negotiation, etc—it always depends on the ability being used.

The basic way to resolve an ability is to roll 1d20+ (unit’s Offense) against Unit’s Defense. Success inflicts the effect specified by an ability.

If a unit’s defense is reduced below 0, it suffers a defeat appropriate to the ability used to inflict said defeat.